Healthy comfort
by planet p
Summary: AU; you have to take comfort where you can.


**Healthy comfort** by planet p

**Disclaimer** I don't own _the Pretender_ or any of its characters.

* * *

_2006_

Nicolas hated mints. There was no particular reason, he guessed, he had always just hated them. It was merely a mistake of fate that his mother was crazy for them. Yeah right! It figured that his mother's one pet addiction would be the one thing that he hated with a passion, the one thing that could churn his stomach just by its mere mention.

* * *

Michelle tapped her hand on the side of the riding hood red plastic shopping basket, humming along with whatever it was that was playing over radio. Modern music, they called it. She hated it and loved it all at the same time. It made her feel crazy and confused and young, it made her wonder about humanity and war, it made her want to yell and scream and laugh, it made her want to die just so she might say that she had once lived, that she had felt life.

The artificial lights reminded her of her lab, their humming drowned out by the louder humming of refrigerators and the air-conditioning. Scanning the sweets shelf, she spotted the mints and chucked a few bags into the basket clutched on one arm absently.

* * *

The checkout boy was cute. He had a nice body, nice eyes. Michelle sighed and made some joke about bad golf jokes. He smiled. His smile was nicer.

* * *

Standing out amongst all of that blue sky and asphalt car park, she wanted to cry. She missed her lab, missed the safety of four walls, missed the company of the cameras, missed knowing that she was not the only crazy one. Bizarrely, she even missed Meg calling her "sweetie" in that cute little kid voice.

She heaved in a deep breath and watched as a moth flitted in the grubby gutter, unburnt hydrocarbon and smoke filling her lungs fuzzily.

* * *

Three blocks from home, stuck in a red light, she cried. Mascara ran down her cheeks in torrents. A teen couple walked by on the concrete, boy piggybacking the girl, girl with her chin rested on the boy's shoulder, head in his neck.

Sobbing, Michelle laughed. The boy's tee-shirt was utterly silly. The girl never noticed. Lights changed to green and she drove off with a little too much gas.

* * *

_Michelle fixed the clip in her red hair, wobbling after Meg as the older woman pushed the door wide and stepped out into the world. Real ground beneath her feet, real sky up in the sky, real sun burning up the world. She tripped on the threshold and tried not to fall face first into the gravel, just the car park. She breathed in and tasted the faraway sea, like cold chips when she had had too much beer, the air when she rode down the hill on her sister's bike with the busted brakes._

_Meg scowled, blowing her fringe up sarcastically. She rolled her eyes in a manner that reminded the younger woman of a certain supervisor. Michelle dropped her eyes from all of that boundless blue, scanning the car park proficiently._

_The reason for Meg's disapproval stood by the outer wall. Catherine sat cross-legged upon the hot concrete path, short skirt too short, sun burning her thighs. Green laughed and shook his head, commandeering his win, the pretty blue marble Catherine said was her __favourite__. The look in her eyes then was murderous. Just to dare to make a play on Pepsi was brainless, unless one was looking to get bashed._

_William sighed from his position leant against the wall, watching the game half-heartedly, smoking a __ciggie__. "Hey, Cats, what say you fix me a shiny new stiff, nice addition to the morgue. Getting mighty lonesome these days."_

_Catherine grinned evilly._

_William rolled his eyes. "Pretty please?" Stepping away from the wall, he strolled over and passed Catherine his cigarette._

_Catherine took a drag and passed the __ciggie__ to Green. Green shook his head, earning himself crazy looks from the other two. Catherine leant forward and shoved him in the shoulder. "Killjoy." Throwing her face to the sky, she burst into raucous laughter, the type of which always scared Michelle a little too much, because she knew that Catherine was crazy. Meg called it the good sort of crazy. Michelle wasn't entirely sure there was such a thing. She sucked her mint and wondered too much. Summer had legs and ran like the wind._

* * *

She took a left and changed course, needed to talk to Sydney, or maybe just to see he was still with her, still there, not gone.

She remembered how he used to sit out on the steps in the freezing cold, gazing up at the night sky, gazing up at stars, or nothing at all; remembered how she had stood in the doorway and pretended she didn't notice how he didn't notice her at all; pretended like she didn't know he wasn't hers. Nights she hugged him like he was. Nights she hugged him all alone. He was somewhere else, gone with her inside, dead inside like she was outside.

Nights she lay awake as he slept, wrapped up in dreams of her, dreams that kept him warm inside. Nights she gazed up at the darkened ceiling and wondered if aliens existed. William always said the Africans had aliens. She always laughed and shivered.

Michelle sighed and pulled up half on the curb. Sydney was still at work. She would wait. She slapped the radio on and shut her eyes. He had never given up waiting, not even now. She knew what forever meant. She knew that forever to Sydney was Catherine. She was his plus one. Even now, even in death.

Michelle was just the replacement. Never really meant to replace an irreplaceable hole in the heart. She didn't resent him for it. He was just the same for her. Could never really replace Jacob. Just two people who hurt, two people who needed to feel good, to feel loved, even if it was just make-believe, because one plus one equaled two no matter what.

* * *

_Michelle stood by the snacks table and poured herself a glass of punch._

_Catherine danced the way a star shone up in the sky. James didn't dance. Sydney was too nice to turn her down._

_Michelle laughed, all polite and ladylike. The golf jokes rot her brains. She ran._

_Edna was working late at Grace. William left James to the admin girls and got tipsy drinking too much punch. Michelle listened to him ramble on about aliens and was convinced they must exist as he must have been one, he just didn't know it._

_They had a counting contest. William got so drunk he couldn't remember what came next, went out back to puke his guts up in the alleyway. Michelle shivered and wondered if he was going to die. Meg would have liked that._

_Meg was gone now. Jacob too. Michelle forgot in the day and remembered all over again in bed, cold and all alone._

_Edna came and took Michelle inside, told her not to worry, William would be fine just as long as he got his __ciggies__. Gave the girl a hug and took her heels off to run back to the car. Got the __ciggies__ and a blanket too. Said she was cold. Wouldn't admit she was more worried than she was upset. Let him think what he wanted, let him believe in his aliens and sleep on the couch, let him make-believe that she didn't give a stuff, let him make-believe he didn't. They both knew how it would end. The end had always been right there, but the start was so far away all that unknown scared them half to death. So they never fought it, just took it the way it came, day by day, pretending not to feel, pretending not to need._

_Michelle didn't understand. Too young still. Grew up and cried all over again. Living was just another word for dying, yet death didn't seem so scary with someone to share it with, didn't seem like dying at all, seemed quite like living really._

* * *

Sydney frowned when he saw her still crying. She saw his worry and didn't want it, saw his care and hated it, for one savage moment. How dare he care? He had Catherine. Who did she have? So she laughed.

Then he hugged her and she didn't mind being a replacement, thought that maybe make-believe was really just another word for fractured reality.

She hugged him back and felt crazy like a crazy person.

* * *

She was sucking one of her horrid mints again, watching old reruns of soapies, singing along to the used car commercials.

Nicolas navigated his way past the lounge and headed straight for his room, gone to read one of his books. He ducked into the kitchen and snatched his plate of meatloaf and vegetables from the counter.

* * *

Michelle clutched the pillow to her chest and lay down on the couch, closing her eyes and just listening to the sounds of the television, the sound of dreams whispering quiet and low like waves upon the beach.

She woke in the night and went and sat on the end of Nicolas's bed, just watched him sleep, watched him dream. In the morning she would go and buy him a new book.

She wondered if Sydney would mind terribly if she invited him to stay the night. The television was no healthy comfort, and she really was too old for stuffed animals.

* * *

_29/10/2006_


End file.
